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Friday, March 17, 2017

Day 3: Barcelona Training Trip!

Day 3: Barcelona Training Trip!
Welcome to Day 3 of our 2017 HAC / GCAC Barcelona Training Trip!
Today was special! Some of us completed our first (and second) double+dryland; the rest had a tough kick practice plus a two hour hike in Calella :)
The group is divided into three teams: The Superior Sunshine Sharks!, The Banana Negative Splits, and the Water Cheetahs. We do team challenges and the groups earn points! The first team challenge was creating a fun and motivational team name; the second was each group was assigned a coach and they had to come up with a story about their childhood... it's been VERY fun for them + us coaches :)
Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day (they don't celebrate it here!)

9:00-11:00am practices are THE BEST! Today our legs were SPENT! We had two groups in the pool, and the third went on a hiking adventure with Doris!

We had the pool mostly to ourselves....

... but lo and behold it turns out we followed YORK Swim Club here from TO! What a small world :)

Mckenner, Fly Girl and Anna doing some dryland on deck!

The morning hiking crew was headed to the pool, so after some downtime after lunch the morning swim group was going out for a lovely jaunt. I took my time after lunch getting ready, but I tried to catch up with the second group's hike in Calella, but they were hard to find! I looked on the rocks... not there...

... looked at the lighthouse, they weren't there either...

... they were not hiding in the bamboo shoots...

... during my journey I came across some ferocious wildlife. This pigeon was VERY intimidating; gave me the evil eye...

... this creature was SUPER scary, look how he's showing that tree who's boss! Smallest mountain lion I've ever seen but he sure seemed scrappy...

... they're not swimming in there, that's for sure...

... look portside! Aye what a discovery! I feel like Christopher Columbus!

Hi Daniel!!!!

Bountiful, Ogradyclimbingtime and Michael had a great view! They were very adventurous!

Fly Girl, Mckenner and Doris our Chaperone having a little break!

Hi Emmett! You 'rock' :) Drew's in the background taking some nice photos.

Caitniss and Avacado stretching after their second swim, recovery :)

The whole crew stretching it out :) Get ready, tomorrow morning will be TOUGH!!!

We LOVE to stretch :) The heat lamps are the best, it was a breezy afternoon!

Group meeting after dinner: Superior Sunshine Sharks is leading the pack with 10pts; the Banana Negative Splits are in second with 5pts and the Water Cheetahs are the anchor with 3pts. Don't worry folks, the games have just begun :)

Team meeting as we review the day! The kids are SO wiped; tomorrow we have a field trip! And the missing luggage is FINALLY arriving, woo hoo :) :)

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Day 2: Barcelona Training Trip!

Welcome to Day 2 of our 2017 HAC / GCAC Barcelona Training Trip!
We're getting into the swing of things!

Getting ready for our first morning swim! These are the early birds!

This is our shiny lobby, SO nice!

This is our AWESOME dining room. So much food; some "interesting" selections, some 'inedible' but mostly delicious! The kids are expanding their culinary horizons, but pancakes won't ever be same without maple syrup. (Next time YOU ask if they have some -in English- and see the look you get!!!) The coffee here is also MUCH different from home, FYI!

The pool is SO nice in the morning! Super bright and warm on deck, but not too hot!

Smile for the camera, sans goggles. Sydney, Hannah, Caitlin and Ava having some fun!!!!

Trust me, Emmett was as thrilled as he looks when he was told he 'has' to be in the photo LOL!

Stretching after our workout, while some of us are in the gym spinning away!

Out for a stroll along the Mediterranean before lunch! We're all used to the white sandy beaches, which we were expecting! Here, it's very granular like tiny pebbles but smooth... not many shells either, and sort of a workout to walk on. We were saying that we exfoliated our feet :)

They have these neat cafe's along the beach, with a tent like top and glass windows, with table seating also on the outside of it. Very cool, would be a great spot for an espresso!

The water is C-H-I-L-L-Y but we are going to do a polar bear swim one of these days :)

It was so bright and sunny, the sign in the back reads Calella if you can't read it :)

There's this circular building behind the pool that hides the sun TOO early like a premature sunset. Grrrr- You should see the Russian National Team coaches that have been here for 4 weeks: shorts in the AM and parkas and jeans in the PM!

Carmen, Susie on deck with Doris taking some pictures during our afternoon swim, our first double!

Check out our dinner spread....

... fruits and desserts...

... hot foods and salad... please remind me to WORK OUT while I'm here too :)

Ogradychowingdowntime and Avacado are the last ones to finish up... as usual :)

Every night we get together to review the day as a team, just us! (Ugh, why so blurry?!?!?)

Day 1: Barcelona Training Trip!

Welcome to Day 1 of our 2017 HAC / GCAC Barcelona Training Trip!
We were off and running first thing this afternoon on our BiGGEST team adventure yet!

It was timed perfectly, as we 'escaped' from the snow :)

Emmett and Fly Girl on route! We arrived a 'little' early thanks to the unpredictable road conditions!

Lining up ready to board for Munich! Did the kids tell you how we were delayed one hour in the plane so they could de-ice it? They probably didn't even notice because they were socializing and playing games on the TVs :)